Season 2 Episode 6: Allison Barr Allen of Fast

Come on into The Room. The Room is a series that lets you get a view into the room where it happened. If you're a founder facing questions about your first customer, first fundraise, or first hire, this is the show for you. I'm Claudia Laurie.

And I'm Madison McIlwain, your co-hosts.

This week we are excited to share our conversation with Allison Barr Allen, co-founder and COO of Fast. For those of you who haven't heard, Fast is a one-click checkout platform that has gotten quite a bit of venture attention over the past year. Whether you realized it or not, you probably have been a shopper of a Fast company. This January, Fast announced their $102 million Series B led by Stripe, which puts them on the map as a unicorn only 10 months after their $20 million Series A. Prior to Fast, Allison started her career in operations, notably as a product operations lead at Uber for payments and money products. Having led ops for instant pay for drivers, it's no wonder Fast caught her eye. As a passionate angel investor and Twitter personality, Allison met her Australian co-founder Dom Holland on Twitter, being intrigued by the very early beginnings of what Fast ended up being. After angel investing herself, she quickly fell in love with the space and company and took a leadership and co-founding role as COO. In today's episode, we will get an inside peek into the early days at Uber, why investing is for everyone, and why Fast has, well, grown so fast. Let's open the door.

Allison, thank you so much for being here today with us on The Room.

Thanks so much for having me.

We are really excited to dive into your founding story of building Fast, but before we go to the, the fun of your founding journey, we wanna start a little bit prior, which is setting the stage for your life. You grew up in Ohio, graduated from Northwestern, and started a career as a tech consultant at PwC. And on the side, you were doing a personal finance blog, which is really apt to what you do now, which is fintech. What prompted this journey into personal finance at a young age?

Yeah, so what happened was I graduated from college in 2010 and then started consulting, and that was the first time in my life I was like getting a real paycheck, I think. Through college, I was like working any job I could just to make enough money to pay activity fees and like pay for my books, which is like hundreds of dollars. And you really just like don't have a lot of money. And so after college was the first time I was making a salary paycheck. So I was lucky in that I was able to pay off my loans pretty quickly after college, maybe a year or two later. So then I had like extra savings for the first time in my life. And I went to my mom and I was like, I don't know what to do. Like, what do I do with this extra money? So she took me to the local Chase Bank in my hometown of Bexley, Ohio, and they set me up with mutual funds, I think. So then I think I just got really curious to understand like how, what mutual funds were, how like investing operates, and I started doing a lot of like research on my own. And it was really interesting to me 'cause like, mom is a nurse and my dad ran his own small restaurant and my parents worked a lot of hours, like really intense, like physical jobs. And like always working like really, really hard. And it was like really fascinating to me that you could make money by like picking companies and you're not actually like working hourly. So it was— I was like, this is amazing, like you can make money while you're sleeping. Love the ideas and started reading Warren Buffett books and other things and eventually transferred the money out of Chase and started managing it on my own. But when I was consulting, I just started investing even in tech stocks then. I would, I liked reading about companies and not just what the products were. Well, one, I tried to figure out like what moves stock prices. So I would watch the stock market and try to figure out like, okay, what makes the prices go up or down? Is it earnings? Is it something else? And then I would, I would read about products and about like the leadership. And one of the first companies that really fascinated me was Tesla. I read about Tesla, like I think it was like the month that they were launching the first Model S. And I was like, This is crazy. I've never seen anything like that before. So I ended up investing like pretty early on and I didn't have that much money then. So it wasn't that much, but I've done pretty well on that investment and sort of like holding these companies long-term. You like learn a lot about the ups and downs of the stock market and betting for the long-term.

I love that. I think especially right now at the point at which we're recording this, we're right in the middle and have yet to see the resolution of the GameStop, Robinhood, Wall Street drama. And so this whole movement of retail investors swaying the public markets and the power of understanding where you can be investing and making money overnight is just so critical and foundational to how wealth creation can happen for many young individuals.

Yeah, I'm like mixed about it cuz I think people can, especially if you're trading stock options and you don't really understand how they're structured, your money can actually go to zero. And, and when you're buying stocks, it doesn't really happen like that. So Also, I like get a bit concerned that the focus is on like making a quick buck when like to be really good at investing, it's one thing that investing has taught me is a lot of emotional maturity, especially in times of volatility. Because when you have studied like the history of the markets, you understand that it goes up and down and generally goes up. And there have been wars, there have been pandemics. Like last year everyone thought the world was gonna end. They're like, what if it goes to zero? Like, who knows? And it's Generally these bounce back and like if you understand that, then you're not gonna be the unlucky person who sells at the bottom.

So what I'm hearing you say is like tenacity and consistency is important and you should be zigging when others zag, which definitely comes into the founder journey. And today you're a founder, but when you were that age, was being a founder on the horizon? Was that something you thought you would always do?

No, definitely not. So I got into tech by working at Uber in Chicago and then moved to San Francisco. After about a year. So that was like really amazing for me. My life would be totally different if I wasn't able to work at Uber. I feel so lucky and learned so much there. I had an awesome experience because in Chicago I learned how the operation side of the business works. I worked directly with drivers. I helped manage the whole supply side of the marketplace. I did everything. And you really learn how it works like on the ground and all these problems that it takes to build a business like that. And then when I moved to San Francisco, I learned the product side. So I worked directly with product and engineering. I worked— I was, instead of thinking about Chicago, I was thinking about the global business. I learned a ton about product strategy and I really enjoyed doing like— I got to a point where I didn't really see myself moving up the product ladder or in like other executive roles. I loved investing. So I was like, how do I combine what I've learned at Uber with like my love of like the investing process? I ended up meeting some venture capitalists. I was hooked on venture capital. I met like lots of people. I have a huge network of investors I know at so many incredible venture firms and learned a ton. And then I started angel investing and that was really fun as well. Here I was at this huge company with 25,000 people and I could meet these like founders, like 2 or 3 people with like a prototype of a product. And I loved the process to try to like figure out, is this something that can be like worth billions of dollars? So I ended up like writing several like small checks into companies, just learn basically and, and test my gut. And then I met Dom, my co-founder, after he had moved from Australia. And yeah, sort of the rest is history.

Let's rewind a little bit back to 2014 when you joined Uber. It was an incredibly hot startup at the time. It was during its period of hockey stick growth and looked very different from the Uber that we know and love today. Could you tell us a little bit more about what it was like all the way back then, what were some of your worst and best days at Uber?

That's a big question.

A lot to unpack there.

I just chatted with someone on my team like yesterday. We, I think, spent our whole one-on-one like telling crazy stories from Uber. But yeah, so I think there's two sets of experiences. One was like when I was in ops, it was like pretty funny because I was in management consulting. So I was like flying to Hartford, Connecticut every week wearing business casual clothes, like working at this huge insurance company. And then suddenly I was like working at the startup, which is what I wanted, but like, it's totally different experience. When I first started, so Uber had two offices in Chicago. One was like for the employees. And then we had this like driver support center where drivers would come to get help every day. It would open at like 9:00 AM. There'd be a line out the door before it even opened. When I first joined in October 2014, we didn't have an Android app yet. All the drivers had to get iPhones. So many of them would like rent the phone from Uber. So they had to come to the support center to get the phone. So Uber was one of the biggest buyers of iPhones in the world because we were supplying all these phones to drivers. That's like another—

And that was easier than making an Android app?

Well, they launched the Android app after, but like to grow quickly, they bought a lot of phones. We would rent them to drivers. Yeah, it was a crazy operation. To be able to give people income opportunities when many of them like may not have been able to get jobs otherwise, that was like really satisfying. And like at the time there was no other way that you could just get a job by downloading an app or like earn money. Now there's like Instacart and all the others are way bigger, but like at the time, like Uber was the biggest one. And like—

I remember from my time at Uber, you talking about going to the Greenlight hubs, working with drivers. It's truly the craziest experience. I've only probably spent, you know, half a day or a day, maybe a handful of times, and the problems that they face and just how grueling that work is, I think is unrealized. And so I can only imagine doing that at the beginning when there weren't all the infrastructure systems to manage the tickets and the systems weren't fully in place, how difficult that must have been. But it's awesome to see how that's been able to scale, and it's incredible to speak to someone who was a part of that. Just fast-forwarding a little bit, you also worked on the money team at Uber, which is really the birthplace of significant financial innovation, such as Instant Pay for drivers and Uber Cash. It's really been a place where you're able to help drivers earn and earn liquid dollars, which is significant. Walk us through how some of those insights have informed your journey to Fast.

Yes. Instant Pay launched about 3 months after I moved to San Francisco, so I actually knew the product was coming when I joined the team. I was really excited about it because, like, I knew— because you would pay drivers once a week, and then at the time we didn't even, like, verify that their bank account was valid when they entered it. So if their payment got rejected, it would take them, like, a day for the file to come back, and then they'd have to re-enter and then go out again. So they may not get it till Friday or something. So when you have a group of people that are often living paycheck to paycheck, like their payment's messed up for whatever reason, like they get really angry. And I knew that they would really like if they could get paid faster. So it was sort of a no-brainer thing from my experience. So in Damages, where I actually learned like how that product operated. So the PM team I joined, they'd been building it for about 3 months. There were 3 engineers working on it, 1 PM, and it was, that was basically it. So the first version of the product, it wasn't mobile native. We sort of built a website and it would link to the website and they would pay themselves that way. But it was truly instant pay. Like we partnered with Green Dot Bank and the drivers could get paid right away. I managed the rollout of that product. So we would like figure out which cities we want to test it in, iterate over scale.

It's so clear that your experience at Uber directly informed your ability to build fast. And maybe you can, for our listeners, Describe what Fast means to you in your own words.

Yeah, good question. Fast to me was like one of those no-brainer things when I first heard about it and met Dom. So at the time, Dom had like a one-click login product and he said that he wanted to build checkout, but it wasn't built yet. And I told him like right away, I'm like, I think this could be really big. And it was just sort of one of those things. I was like, if this works as we think it can, like this can be like really, really massive. Because I saw the impact that better payments experiences can have. And I think a lot of businesses undervalue— how I describe it often is businesses often want to focus on like their core product, the shoes they're selling or the pants they're selling or whatever it is. And then every single business has to figure out the payments part. And shortly after I met Dom, I actually went to a Stripe conference and there was an hour-long session about how to optimize your checkout flow. And it was all these custom things that every single store has to do to make a better flow. And I'm just, this is why it's going to be big because right now every single business has to do this. Every single team has to allocate engineers to manage this thing. It doesn't really make sense. If you're selling t-shirts, your goal is not to become an expert in how like chargebacks are done or expiration code logic for credit cards, right? It's just like, wasting resources. So how do you solve these like macro problems across businesses? And I think it's often one of the last things that people are thinking about, cause it's sort of like the last step, right? It's, oh, they decide they're going to buy. Of course they're going to like go through the whole thing. But when you look at the numbers, which we've seen, we can drive up to a 65% increase in overall conversion by putting our button and optimized checkout form on the product page. And people know like intuitively, cause if you say like, Oh, I clicked on that Instagram ad and then it went to this like website. Your odds to buy the thing are probably much higher if it's easier to do. And then if you have to add to cart and then go through the guest checkout flow, like people just drop off and that's a lot of like lost business value. So it's incredible to like have the hypothesis about like how it would actually help and impact businesses and then see the data after, after we launched and that, that was like true.

I've definitely made quite a few purchases that were for sure incremental because of all the innovations on the checkout side and, you know, not needing to go find my credit card. And I am a personal fan of one-step checkout. And I think brands really undervalue how important consumer engagement is and not in the traditional sense, but also just conversion throughout the funnel. I think something that's so interesting is that most of like the critical pieces of actually getting someone to buy something is at the very last step. And yet folks still are down to sort of lose out on completing that purchase because of friction there. Talking about Dom Holland, your co-founder, you mentioned him. He comes from a very different background than yourself. I was actually born in Queensland, Australia, so small world. Tell us how you met Dom and how you two decided to embark on this journey together. I remember hearing Twitter mentioned somewhere.

Yeah, so Dom reached out in July of 2019, I think. He had come from Australia in June of that year. So he launched this prototype product, and also Dom was a serial entrepreneur, so he had like multiple businesses. His last one was an on-demand towing company that got up to about 50 people, and he ended up shutting down. So this was sort of his, his next go at the founder route. So he had like launched a prototype, and it got some traction on Product Hunt, so he decided to come to the US and build the dream. So he was out like cold pitching investors and sending like a bunch of like random messages on Twitter to like anyone who would meet him. So I ended up responding and we got coffee and he would send these like great updates with the metrics of his like prototype product. But we just like clicked right away because I had actually, when I was becoming an investor and right when I learned about venture capital, so this was even like a year and a half before, I'd written an investment thesis called frictionless finance. So it's like a 3-page document, and I went through all the different ways and payments flows I thought there was opportunity to remove friction. And this was spring of 20— maybe 2017. So this was when crypto, Bitcoin, first went up to $20K, and everyone was saying this was like the future of fintech and payments. And I was like, wait a sec, like, I think there's a lot of opportunity within fintech. And at the time, there weren't a lot of dedicated fintech investors. There were like, maybe some people would have one-off fintech investments, but consumer fintech's really hard. And I don't know, but I wrote this investment thesis. And so it was like different ways to reduce friction. The first part, like half the page was about checkout. And I pulled a bunch of stats on like improving checkout. And I also thought a lot about identity and how you think about like an identity API. So Dom was basically building my investment thesis in real life. So I had already thought like really deeply about this problem. I met him as a potential angel investor. So he was like, I'd started angel investing, he was like looking for investors, and I was, I think this could be big. Who have you met? Which, which investors have you talked to? So at the time he'd met one or two small funds. So because I knew all these investors, I had started doing deal routing. So I ended up sending his update to Yonhammer, an index. And Jan is based in London, but I had— I thought Jan was the best consumer fintech investor. So he led the Series A in Robinhood and TransferWise and Adyen and like a lot of these iconic fintech companies. So Jan ended up taking the meeting with Dom, and they met 2 weeks later, and he decided to invest on the spot. So then Dom came back to me and convinced me to join the company. And the reason I did, and like the reason it's worked out well, is like I think 2 things. Like One, I'd looked at lots and lots of businesses. I didn't think I hadn't seen anything I thought sort of had the potential of Vast. Second, we have very complementary backgrounds because as you said, Dom didn't really have a network in the Bay Area, like know a lot of people, and he had run smaller businesses. And I had been at Uber from 2,000 to 25,000 employees. So I just saw the really high growth and had a really big network of people who had done that before and had built very similar products. I think it's like worked out really well. We've made a great team.

It's so powerful to see the journey of finding a co-founder. I think there's a lot of buzz about co-founder dating and how do you find the person that you should build your company with? And quite frankly, from the investor standpoint, it's vital that you have a co-founding team who gets along and we can believe is gonna stay the course because there's no shortage of dramas and big moments and ups and downs in the founding journey. And I think even Claudia and I realized in a small way doing our podcast together, How much we spend time we spend together and this is our side project. It's so critical to be hitching your horse to someone who both you trust undoubtedly and you believe is gonna be there and, and be this kind of complimentary person to you through the journey that is building a business.

Yeah, I, I think it's for us, it happened like pretty organically. I'd, you shouldn't force it either. You do spend a lot of time with these people and also like I think solo founders often are underestimated. There's lots of examples of really incredible solo founders. Eric Yuan, who's the founder of Zoom, he started Zoom, I think, when he was in his 40s, and he was a solo founder with a, like, thick Chinese-American accent. So a lot of investors doubted him, right? And he had a lot of trouble raising his early rounds. But look at Zoom now, the top app in the world, I think the most downloaded app in all of 2020. That's like an incredible story. So I'd say just because people are doing it a certain way doesn't mean that's the only way. I think what's really important is following your gut and your heart and doing what you think is right. Because I think if you're just trying to follow what other people are doing, then it may not end so well. And if you follow your gut, like, you may do things that other people are not doing, but that's the right thing to do. When I was at Uber, I was— I would spend a lot of time talking to investors. I already spent a lot of time on Twitter, like, At the time, no one saw these as like value-add things for my job. If anything, it was a negative to like have spend time on Twitter, right? And suddenly now it's people see that as an advantage. Then it was not. And I didn't get any like internal credibility at Uber because I was like active on Twitter. But that's where it's like I did it because I enjoyed it. It's very important to like spend time on things that you like doing and then you'll find the right way. In like your own path, which may not exactly match someone else's path and probably won't. Like most of like the really successful companies are like exceptions.

So it's fun that we're getting to talk to you today 'cause just 2 days ago you announced your guys' recent fundraising round, which was a Series B led by Stripe at $102 million. So first off, congratulations. That's incredible. Secondly, I believe you raised your Series A not even a year ago. And so that kind of growth, uh, is, is incredible. We'd love to understand all the way at the beginning though, who was the first check? Who was the first person to say, I believe in you and Dom?

So Dom had raised an angel round in Australia from like a few people, and then Jan was the first institutional check. So I wasn't officially at the company at the time. So, so Jan was like in investing in Dom, but I know like Jan really well, and that's like continued to grow. And then what happened was after I joined, we started like meeting with a lot of investors who I knew in my network. So we talked to like almost every fund. They probably talked to us at some point and we were just pitching like the vision of what we were building. And it's even before we've made significant— we had an atypical approach. I think it wasn't, we raised the $2.5 million, then we were like heads down building product necessarily. It just sort of happened organically. People were curious what I was up to. So then it sort of turned into early fundraising again because we were really pitching the long-term vision about where this goes. And payments is complicated, so it's hard to build a prototype payments product. We're building products at scale. There's a lot of security requirements, there's a lot of risk components, there's a lot of different things that need to work right. As I said, in payments there's all these systems that were working together to make this work. So the investment has helped us hire the right people that, that can build a lot of these products. And I think the most important part when you're fundraising is to like understand both the short and the long-term vision of your company. And your job is to convince investors that you personally and your team can build a multi-billion-dollar-plus company. At this point, they may even be looking for $10 billion-plus because $1 billion doesn't feel like that much anymore. But that's like the single thing that investors are looking for when they talk to you. So you have like 30 minutes to tell them your story and like convince them that not only do you have the right strategy, can you build in the short term, do you have the long-term vision for how it's going to be really, really big, and then are you the right team to do it? And I think from the beginning, I'd written like a master plan sort of around the product strategy, which like hasn't really changed that much. And we thought like really deeply about like how we grow and product areas that we'll go into. That is how you get to build like a big company.

So let's talk about that early product strategy. You started solving for checkout friction, building a no password, one-click, incredibly fast checkout platform, and your product is tailored at solving purchase pain for shoppers, but it's also a product that's sold to merchants. Tell us about your initial customer strategy and what it was going after those first large accounts. Tell us a little bit more about how you build out users on both sides of the transaction.

Yeah, so we're not like a Chrome extension or anything like that. We're integrated with the website. So our product approach was integrating with e-commerce platforms. So we built a partnership with BigCommerce in the summer, and that actually ended up being our launch platform. So We built a BigCommerce app, and now any big store that has a site with BigCommerce, they can download Fast in about like 30 minutes and can get it up and running. So often payment integrations take a long time. Like at Uber, it would take 3 to 6 months plus to do one payment integration. So the fact that they're on platforms and we can build this app in, in like that, they basically copy and paste some code and then the payments can work end to end. Like that's like really magical. BigCommerce was our first. And at, like, in September, we launched a bunch of products at the same time. So you can't just launch, like, the app. So we, we have a dashboard for sellers where it's, like, self-onboarding. We have a consumer dashboard. We have the hosted checkout page, and we have a BigCommerce app. So we were building a lot of these products for the first time. Definitely the first, like, couple months after we launched, we're just really quickly iterating based on, like, feedback and features and things that, like, the sellers just really needed to like operate their business. Some of it was related to reporting, some of it was related to, we like, the first time we launched the coupon code field was on like, you had to click another button. So we had to bring that into like the first thing. So some of these seem simple, but it was a lot of quick iterations on like the core product to make it work well for those sellers. And then we launched on WooCommerce next. So we have like multiple go-to-market strategies. So one is small, medium businesses. So we have a, awesome sales team that does a lot of like direct outbound to merchants. So that's like one approach. Second, we partner with agencies. So there's a lot of web builder agencies who build these websites for brands. They're building like custom websites or managing the website. So it may be like if you're selling t-shirts or something, you may like outsource your web development to one of these like agencies. So we can partner directly with agencies to like distribute and refer people for the product too. And then what we're working on now is more direct integrations and more bigger to get more ready for like enterprise. So we're building APIs so that anyone with a custom website will be able to like integrate with Fast.

That's so helpful. Thank you for explaining some of your go-to-market, cuz I think on my side of the table, we see a lot of Shopify-enabled experiences and they have a marketplace now, and, and obviously BigCommerce is a part of that. But when I was at Gap, right, we were a custom in-house order management system and our entire website we had built and we're just transitioning to React and had all of these components and the payment space. I mean, I remember Apple Pay was on the roadmap when I was there, which is a couple years ago now, but it was just this headache that everyone was like, oh, we know we have to do Apple Pay, but it's gonna take forever. And I think it's finally off the website. But this kind of macro environment of e-commerce infrastructure is really heating up as a result of the increase in e-commerce. This year. Um, obviously with COVID it's been a, a massive tailwind for the industry, and we've had the opportunity to speak to a number of cool both brands on our podcast as well as infrastructure solutions such as Narvar. We really feel there is a movement towards post-purchase engagement and how brands interact with their customers, both on the pre-purchase side, which is the marketing world, but really more so once they hit checkout. How does Fast view themselves in that evolving ecosystem of almost post-purchase into post-purchase experiences?

Yeah, so a lot of post-purchase experiences now are very much B2B. How we're different is we're building a relationship with consumers. So already we have like a consumer dashboard where consumers can track their deliveries. And how we often describe it is how do you build like the Amazon for the rest of the internet? Because right now, if you don't purchase something on Amazon, the emails, your receipts are all in your email, or you have log into the sites to like find all the tracking items. So it's like pretty complex to manage. So how do you do that and also build, bring a lot of these tools to any website that wants to set up no matter what platform they're on? Shopify is like pretty sophisticated in a lot of this, but a lot of stores are not on Shopify, especially bigger stores that have their own like custom infrastructure. And so like the whole space is like really growing rapidly, but it's like, how do you enable And a lot of brands too may start selling on Amazon and then they decide they want to go direct to consumer. And we want to make it as easy as possible for these brands to like develop a relationship with their consumer. A lot of this goes back to identity and payments. And then we think longer term about like, what are other steps like after you actually make the purchase, whether it's like support or returns or refunds or things beyond delivery tracking that are very common problems across all these sellers that we can help manage because we can have this entry point. Across the whole ecosystem.

You've created a product that is clearly, you know, hitting product market fit. And obviously with the new sort of fundraise, you're going to continue growing and growing the team. At a company at your stage, culture is incredibly important. And it's something that starts to get established much earlier than I think a lot of folks might expect. Transparency seems to be a core value of Fast. Which can be seen through your and Dom's social presence. Tell us a little bit more about how the two of you thought about establishing fast culture and how that's evolved over the past year.

Yeah, good question. I think Dom's like very optimistic. I don't think I've like ever really heard him complain about something. So I think that like drives a lot, but it's like, we want to create this to build a big company. Like one, you have to hire incredible people. Companies are built not just by one or two people, but convincing One, identifying the right problem to tackle, and then convincing a lot of people that they should work on the problem and build it with you. So we do a lot of pitching the business and iterating our goals and our long-term vision and mission about where it's going. I think it helps a lot that we have thought really deeply about the longer-term product strategy. I think if, when people have that sort of north star about where we see the business going, it's easier for us to hire people and let them like, build and take creative chances and opportunities because sort of everyone's aligned on, on where it's going. So much of it is about team, like hiring like the right people. I think we've been able to hire a lot of people who've worked at big companies and are excited to build. At big companies, a lot of it becomes micro-optimization of things that already exist. And you can learn a lot there and like how the processes are built and everything, but it's less zero to one, like open slate. It's not building on top of choices that people have previously made. So we've been able to hire a lot of people who understand how big companies operate and are willing to take that chance and are excited to, to build and create things from scratch.

Yeah, I love that. I once was told by a fellow investor, as I'm thinking about how to coach and help our CEOs at Defy and working through these hiring questions, that the first 10 people you hire will impact the first 100 people that you hire and be reflective of that. And I think that's such an interesting idea that the power you have at the beginning of a company's lifetime, uh, carries through how you are hiring and, uh, building a company into the future. And so as we look at that for Fast, honestly, when we wrote these questions up, we, we didn't know about your new raise. And so almost the question probably answers itself, but what is next for Fast? What does this next year of hypergrowth look like for you?

Yeah, we're going to keep doing a lot of what we've been doing all of last year. So like our strategy doesn't really change. It just gives us the resources to really hire incredible people and I think accelerate a lot of ideas that we have. So it's— yeah, not much is changing. We have one office in San Francisco that is great, but we are like a fully global and remote company at this point as well. So we've been hiring people all over the world. We have like a weekly all hands, which is great to like get everyone like on the same page. I think the goal for this year is to keep adding Fast on more websites all over the world and, and ship incredible product.

Amazing. So I'm curious because we've talked like a little bit about fintech and where Fast sits in the fintech ecosystem as well as your own experience in personal finance. And I know Claudia and I have both, both experienced this, but it's a very male-dominated sector to be in finance. And even kind of building a company in fintech, there's not that many women who are doing it. How do you think we can be breaking down the stigma around women in finance and investing?

Yeah, good question. I think one, it's like being like role models and examples. I'm very vocal about how I angel invest in what I do. I, I try to talk about stocks too, because like, one, I love the stock market, but I think not enough women are involved in a lot of these investing decisions. I think there's some incredible stuff going on with venture firms and trying to like increase gender diversity there. So that's like great to see, but venture is like a small part of the overall finance ecosystem. So when you still look at like overall assets managed, it's still pretty small where women are making these like investing decisions. At Fast, we try to be like super intentional about like hiring and diversity. And it's easier on some teams than others just because of how like the market is currently, but it's like very intentional. And so I think one, like setting a role model, don't be scared to invest or learn about investing. Also invite women to cap tables. So this is like another big one. There's lots of these male-dominated angel investing networks where they share deals, and I'll get a lot of pings from people at funds who say they're looking to have a diverse cap table, so I'm reaching out to you. In some cases, I'm, well, that's like cool that they're reaching out to me just because I'm a woman, but I like that Founders are being intentional and it's not just female founders. Sometimes they'll— this has happened for all male teams too. Our goal is to have 50% women or at least a quarter women on our cap table. And I think that's like another thing. It's just being intentional and thinking a lot about it.

Yeah, no, I love that advice. Thank you so much for framing that up for us. And I think it is super vital, uh, to help show women know that they can do it and being intentional about the way that you bring women into the room. And so I'm hosting a panel in the future, Allison. I hope it's okay if I call you up as my resident female in fintech.

We have a key question, sort of our hero question of our podcast, which is, who was a woman in your life that has had a profound impact on you?

Yeah, I, there's like so many incredible women. I think when I was at Uber and looking to get into investing, I would actually do a lot of just cold outreach to people to try to get meetings. And before I even wanted to become an investor, I actually reached out to Kirsten Green. She took a meeting with me, which was pretty awesome. I was fangirling her. So she's like incredible and inspirational. Another one was Jackie Reese, who recently left Square, but she's also really, really amazing. I'm close with Malin Yen, who runs Operator Collective VC fund, where she has tons of LPs who are incredible. Women in the ecosystem. So those are like a few examples. I don't know Sarah Fryer at Nextdoor, but I think she's like incredible as well. She was also at Square. So Rachel Holt, she was the executive at Uber who's now running a venture fund, and she was on the leadership team at Uber. So there's just like so many incredible women.

Thank you so much for sharing those women that have, uh, really inspired you and your whole story, which to us is very inspiring. And we're hoping will to other young women and others really in the ecosystem who are looking to move on from maybe their their experiences at Uber or other big startups and looking to do their own thing, either in the investing ecosystem or the startup world. So thank you so much for taking the time.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Room. If you enjoyed our conversation, please like, follow, subscribe, talk to us in Clubhouse, and share with friends. We'll be back next week, airing Tuesday at 10 AM Eastern, 7 AM Pacific. See you in the room. All opinions expressed by Claudia Madison McIlwain and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of The Five EC. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.